


rewind

by psychedaleka



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Conversations, M/M, Sauron argues with himself, Sauron's Bad Life Decisions, all character deaths are canonical, is it really necessary to tag all of them separately, psyche you may ask, to which i respond: yes yes it is, torture is described in detail but doesn't happen on screen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:06:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25382800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychedaleka/pseuds/psychedaleka
Summary: A maia of Aulë, lieutenant of Angband, emissary of the Valar, and Lord of Mordor walk into a bar*. This isn’t a joke, no matter how much it feels like one.*For a certain definition of that word.In which Sauron talks (argues) with himself.
Relationships: Celebrimbor | Telperinquar/Sauron | Mairon, Morgoth Bauglir | Melkor/Sauron | Mairon
Comments: 22
Kudos: 67





	rewind

**Dramatis personae**

Mairon _a maia of Aulë, a smith and occasional jeweller, young but not innocent, a nobody who wants and wants and wants but dares not speak a word;_

Gorthaur _lieutenant of Angband, fanatically devoted to his lord Melkor (even if he’s too obsessed with the damn Silmarils to bother thinking about his army!! ~~or his lieutenant~~ );_

Annatar _self proclaimed Lord of Gifts and emissary of the Valar, currently residing in Ost-in-Edhil with the sole purpose of deceiving the elves (definitely nothing else that he wants! Nothing to do with that grandson of Fëanor at all!);_

Sauron _Lord of Mordor, soon to be Lord of All the World, a god in his own right or so he claims, single mindedly searching for his One Ring; and_

A mote of malice.

* * *

Gorthaur and Sauron are fighting. Again.

 _At least they aren’t yelling at me_ , Mairon thinks. _That’s the only time they can get along well enough to do something together_.

Annatar’s off in some distant location, thinking—or, more likely, pacing and avoiding most thoughts. He does that a lot.

Mairon sits, back pressed against a wall, trying to stay out of sight of the two. He stares, blankly, in the opposite direction.

It’s then that he sees—is that a small ball of shadow? It’s drifting along what passes for a breeze here, and Mairon might mistake it for dust if not for the whirlpool of fear and hatred and malice that swirls in it. It’s tiny, though, small enough to fit in the palm of Mairon’s hand, so he isn’t much concerned.

“Oh, hello,” he says. “Who are you?”

The mote doesn’t respond, doesn’t say anything or transfer any thought, but it stops.

Mairon picks it up with a hand, fingers curled around it.

“You really don’t want to be here,” Mairon says. “Really, there’s a lot of yelling and screaming and fighting.”

The mote snuggles deeper into Mairon’s grasp.

“Are you cold?” he asks, then allows his hand to heat up, just a few degrees.

The mote’s not paying him any attention, Mairon knows. But since neither Gorthaur nor Sauron can stand the sight of him, and Annatar is too deeply consumed by his own emotional issues, Mairon’s grateful for company, no matter how awful.

“The other three are me, you know,” Mairon says, conversationally. “I don’t know _how_ they’re me, but they are. I don’t know how I became them, only that I am—and that they, all of them, remember being me, some with vague disgust and others with hatred.

“I don’t know why they don’t like me—well, yes, I suppose I do. I don’t like myself much, either. Really, I’m a nobody, just one smith among many. I’m probably doomed to be making spoons for the rest of my life, you know? I’m a nobody—I can’t move mountains or, really, even design a half decent hammer. How useless is that?

“I _try_ , I really do. I make tools and do experiments with reactions and physics, and everything, but no matter what I tell Gorthaur, it isn’t enough—really, I guess it isn’t enough for me either.

“But I like Almaren! I like my lord, and my peers even though they’re annoying and patronizing, and I like the work that I do even if it isn’t as intellectually fulfilling as I want it to be.”

Mairon looks at the mote, who’s attacking his fingers with a slight tingle.

“You know, maybe I should—sing you to sleep. It might be better than being so sad and angry all the time.”

The mote doesn’t respond, but of course, he didn’t expect it to.

Mairon sings, a soft song, one of sleep and dreams and healing, one that he learned from a maia of Irmo. The mote stills, in a way Mairon only hopes is relaxing, and Mairon shoves him into a pocket on his leather apron.

They’ve stopped yelling at each other.

“What are you doing?” demands the imperious voice of Gorthaur, directly above Mairon.

His blood red silk robes sway around his ankles, revealing practical leather boots.

Mairon looks up at Gorthaur’s decorative golden armour, his hair like fire, the sharp angles of his face, the subtly spiked crown that he wears.

“Singing,” Mairon replies, standing. Mairon’s not as tall as Gorthaur, no, but broader in the shoulders, and sturdier—a smith, not a steward.

“Evidently,” Gorthaur says. “Why?”

“Wanted to sing myself to sleep,” Mairon lies. “Didn’t work.”

“Did you really think it would?” Gorthaur says, mockingly. “Of course it didn’t. You wouldn’t be able to sing an ant to sleep.”

Not this again.

“Can you just leave me alone?” Mairon asks, hating how young he sounds.

“If only I could be rid of you,” Gorthaur says, “I would gladly do so. If I could rid myself of your weakness, I would gouge it out of myself bloody.”

“Must we have this argument again?” Annatar’s silken smooth voice cuts in.

Annatar is blindingly bright, clothed in pure white, chiffon and organza and delicate muslin, the embroidered scarf that he wears wrapped around his body resting on his arms. His clothing floats, lending him an ethereal quality that’s only heightened by his golden hair and the mithril circlet resting in it. He’s a similar size to Gorthaur, though more delicate.

“I recall you made your opinion of him _quite_ clear when we first arrived,” Annatar continues.

Mairon flinches at the memory, at all the times Gorthaur stabbed him or worse.

“I suppose I did,” Gorthaur says. “I also established that none of us here can die or leave or, as a matter of fact, be injured for long.” To Mairon: “do you remember how you screamed when I cut you open? When I tore apart your throat and watched you bleed out, and all that blood on the floor?”

He laughs.

“That was fun.”

“Not for me.”

“I am well aware,” Gorthaur says, still grinning. “It was never meant to be.”

“Now that you’ve had your catharsis, I do believe it would be more prudent to turn our attention to more pressing matters, such as the question of how we leave,” says Annatar.

Mairon casts him a relieved glance, eager not to relive what happened.

“When I find my ring,” Sauron says, in a voice like the rasp of bone, “nothing will stand in my way.”

Sauron’s veil, black and gauzy, ripples in the breeze, and Mairon can’t see his face through it, only the occasional outline of bone. He’s covered in armour, black shot through with veins of gold, and there’s a crown on his head, jagged and spiky.

Annatar turns to him with a vague look of distaste.

“You don’t have your ring,” Annatar says. “And it would seem that your ring is not here.”

“I will find it,” Sauron says. “I will have it.”

“Shall we explore this place, then?” Gorthaur asks. “You can look for your ring. As for me, the sooner I leave, the sooner I can return to my lord.”

“Your lord,” Sauron sneers, “is a pathetic cowardly wretch who—”

“Can you stop fighting?” Mairon interjects. “Just—for, you know, a few moments. I mean we’re the same person aren’t we? Should we… get along?”

Annatar places his hands on Mairon’s shoulders.

“Don’t mind them,” he says, softly.

Annatar sweeps forward, leaving the three behind. Gorthaur jogs to catch up.

“You’re not leaving me behind with _them_ ,” he sneers.

Annatar nods.

He’s in a large hallway, heading in both forward and back, straight, without any kind of slope. It’s wide, wide enough to rival the halls of Khazad-dum, wide enough to rival those of Utumno.

“How wide do you suppose this is?” Annatar asks.

“You go to one side, I’ll go to the other, and we can yell to find out,” Gorthaur says.

A hundred meters, Annatar estimates, from the way sound travels and echoes.

The wall is smooth, made of the same polished white stone as the floor, and without a seam or crack, and completely unaffected by both physical impacts and song.

“The ceiling is rather fascinating, don’t you think?” Annatar asks Gorthaur, when they come together again.

“Installing the source of illumination directly into the stone? The effect is very pronounced though I imagine the cost and materials spent would be rather restrictive.”

Annatar smiles.

“Yes, I suppose that would be what you think of,” he says.

“And you? What is it you first turn to?”

“What Celebrimbor would think.”

“The elf? Fëanor’s grandson? Why him?”

“I—don't know.” A pause. “I care for him.”

“You care for him.” Gorthaur says, disbelievingly. “Why Ost-in-Edhil? Why spend so many centuries there, when what you could learn of the elves would take mere decades to exhaust?”

Annatar regards him.

“Perhaps it would be helpful—yes, I do believe so,” he says, more to himself. Then, to Gorthaur: “after the war, after Melkor was cast into the void, I was—lost. To see Arda ruined so, to see Beleriand razed and sunken under the sea was injurious, and I longed for the days of Utumno, when Melkor, he had such designs for the world.

“I didn’t lie. Not at first, not to the elves, no matter what Sauron might say. Really, I lied to myself, I deceived myself about what I set out to do. I told myself I only wished to learn what it was the elves had that allowed them to win the war but really, I wanted—and still do—to see the world made beautiful and great.

“In Ost-in-Edhil, I met people who shared those goals, who wanted the same thing I did. Do you not remember Utumno and Angband, and the difficulties in convincing the umaiar to do what we wished, the difficulties in convincing _Melkor_?

“I stayed—I continue to stay—because I have a place there. I’m valued—I’m wanted.”

A pause.

“You would turn away from our lord like this?” Gorthaur asks, low and silently furious. “You would betray him for—for _elves_? The groveling firstborn of Eru, who are but flesh and blood and less than the dirt beneath our feet?

“Do you think you love him, that elf of yours? Can he love you as our lord does? Will he love you when you’re elbow deep in the guts of our enemies? Will he smear blood on your lips and kiss you?”

“What would you have me do?” Annatar asks.

“Wait,” Gorthaur snarls. “Wait for our lord to return. Gather his servants and build a fortress and wait though it may be ages yet, though it may be the breaking of the world ere he returns.”

Annatar looks at him.

“I’d forgotten,” he says, quietly, closing his eyes. “I’d forgotten how it felt to be so deeply devoted, to be in love.”

“How could you forsake him?” Gorthaur demands. “Do you not remember who it was that lifted you from the ignominy of that pathetic wretch behind us? He who knew all we desired, he who gave us all we desired, he who is our _everything_.”

“Not all love is felt the same way,” Annatar says, more to himself. Then, louder, with a knife sharp grin: “did you really believe me?”

Gorthaur stops, stares at him.

Annatar laughs.

“Of course you did. Is it such a surprise that I would become a master of lies? That I would be able to deceive even you?”

Gorthaur scoffs.

“Must you, though? Or have I become your only source of entertainment in this place?”

“Well you must admit it was entertaining to see you so riled up,” Annatar says. “But very well, I shall speak no more of it.”

A pause.

“What is that, before us? The two specks.”

“Mairon and Sauron,” Gorthaur says. Casting a look to Annatar: “what? It’s not so hard to adjust your field of vision, you know.”

“Yes,” Annatar says. “I am simply out of practice.”

“We’ve come in a circle,” Gorthaur says, “though our road is neither curved nor bent.”

“A mobius strip, then,” says Annatar. “This dimension which we reside in is not, but the one above us is.”

Gorthaur is silent, for a moment, and he doesn’t notice Mairon running towards them at full tilt.

“He’s—he’s accusing _me_ of taking his ring,” Mairon says to Annatar. “I don’t have it!”

A pause.

“I thought you guys went that way,” Mairon continues, pointing forward.

“Yes,” Annatar says. “It appears that we’ve come in a circle.”

“Who, then would construct such a thing?” Gorthaur asks, rhetorically. “Manwë never would—he hardly has the imagination nor ability to do such a thing.”

A pause.

“Perhaps our lord,” Gorthaur says.

“Aulë?”

Gorthaur slaps Mairon across the face, hard.

“Yours but not mine,” he spits.

Mairon stares at Gorthaur in disbelief.

“Maybe it’s Eru,” Mairon says, to Annatar, clutching his sleeve. “Maybe he’s angry at what you—I—we’ve done, and he—”

“Eru,” Gorthaur says, full of contempt. “Why would he bother with such a thing?”

“Why would Melkor?” Annatar asks.

“You’re right,” Mairon mumbles, to Gorthaur. “Eru would never bother with us.”

Laughter, then, a high cackle.

“Glad you could join us, Sauron,” Annatar says. “Do you have something to add?”

“Wouldn’t that be something?” he says. “That for Melkor, Eru wouldn’t intervene, not even once, and for us, twice? But this time he’s learned, hasn’t he, to keep my ring from me, else I should have drowned—”

“Why would he do such a thing?” Mairon cries. “What have we ever done against him?”

“We defy him,” Sauron says. “We—I—bring order to this world, to a world under my power, a world without suffering, where all obey me.”

“You forget your place,” Gorthaur snaps, “or have you forgotten entirely about our lord?”

“Melkor?” Sauron scoffs. “Melkor was visionless. Melkor was wholly consumed by his love for three paltry gems, so consumed that he forgot about all else—the state of his armies, his vision for the world, _us_. Why delude yourself? Why continue to serve someone without ambition, without discipline, without use?”

“Is _love_ not reason enough for you?” Gorthaur retorts. “Or have you forgotten to love anyone other than yourself?”

“ _Love_?” Sauron sneers. “When did Melkor ever love you? When he promised you power? When he took you to his bed? Lieutenant you call yourself but his whore in truth.”

“Faithless traitor,” Gorthaur spits. “Have you forgotten what loyalty is? Have you—”

“Loyalty?” Sauron laughs, bitter and amused. “Of course I know what _loyalty_ is. Simply because I serve no one but myself doesn’t mean I don’t know what it is.

“There is no lord you can serve, no one you can kneel before who can truly give you what you desire. They, all of them—Aulë, Melkor, Celebrimbor—they all lack vision, lack _discipline_ , lack everything it takes to achieve what it is you want. The sooner you can recognize this, the sooner you can be free.”

“Free?” Gorthaur asks. “Like you? Chained to your ring and telling yourself this is freedom? You may be your own lord, but I can hardly see how you have anything you desire—not even your own soul.”

“How dare you,” Sauron says. “I am so much more than you are.”

“You are so much less.”

“I am the highest power in Middle Earth.”

Gorthaur laughs.

“Half a sunken continent?”

“Melkor didn’t even have that, in the end,” Sauron says. “He lost a Silmaril in his own throne room—and you would tie yourself to him?”

“Have you truly forgotten how it feels to love him?” Gorthaur says.

“I never loved him.”

“Ignore him,” Annatar cuts in. “He’s forgotten how to love, not even himself.”

“Says you,” Sauron says, turning to Annatar.

“You don’t get to berate me, not like this,” Annatar says.

“I have every right to berate you,” Sauron says. “You think you’re so much better than me? Simply because you _love_ your elf? Simply because you hide your nature behind false smiles and empty words? The smiths in Ost-in-Edhil may buy your smug superior attitude but you can’t lie to me, not to yourself.

“I know what you’ve done.”

“Oh do you now? Do you truly believe that my actions are worse than yours? Have you seen yourself in the mirror lately?” Annatar says. “No, I don’t believe so. Let me recount exactly what you are: you reside in a rotting corpse, no more than bone and sinew held together through sheer will, your sense of self is so fractured that you’re literally a shadow of yourself, and, as if that isn’t enough, you’ve traded all your creative ability for what? Power? To get orcs to stand in straight lines? To add insult to injury, how many years did you have your ring? Mere hundreds? And how long have you searched for it? Millennia?

“No wonder there’s no one in this world who you love. There’s no one who could love you in return.”

Sauron laughs, bitter and unhinged, like an unstoppable flood.

“What, do tell, is so funny?” Annatar demands. There’s the barest hint of a flush in his face—the only sign of how affected he is.

“You think I did this to myself?” Sauron says, then continues to laugh.

“Who else, then?”

“You.”

Silence.

“It was your hands which wrought the Ring,” Sauron says, a sadistic grin plastered on his face. “It was you who chose power over what you might’ve had, in Ost-in-Edhil. It was your face our darling Tyelpe saw when we so lovingly tortured him to death. Do you remember? Of course not. It hasn’t happened yet, not for you.

“Why don’t I enlighten you, then, as to exactly what it is that _you_ did?

“He was brought to you unharmed, of course, as you ordered, and first you broke his legs, and shattered his kneecaps so he couldn’t run. Then you bound his arms behind him, hard enough to dislocate his shoulder. You had him whipped, of course, until his back was nothing more than bloody exposed flesh, not a scrap of skin to be seen, until you could see his wet bone.

“And you cut him open, vivisecting him like a particularly fascinating anatomical specimen, and you peeled his flesh from his ribs and you pulled his ribs from his ribcage, one by one, until they lay scattered at your feet, and you cut out his liver and fed it to him, licking the blood on your hands as you did.

“You saved the best for last, as always, and you cut the tendons in his hands, and pried his nails loose, and broke each bone, methodically.

“And when he was useless to you, barely lucid and nothing more than a lump of flesh, you hung him from a pole, because who else would make such a beautiful banner?”

“No!” Annatar rejects that idea.

“Why?” Sauron presses. “Why would I lie to you; why would I lie to myself.”

“We lie to ourselves all the time,” Mairon says, but Gorthaur aims a kick at his ribs and he shuts up.

“Is it because you _love_ him?” Sauron continues. “Did you think that just because you love him, you would spare him? Did you think that, maybe, he loves you in return? That his feelings for his mentor, his confidant, his partner would carry on for the chief servant of the Enemy? Did you think that, maybe, he could know who you are and love you regardless? And love you not only in spite of it, but because of it?

“Do you know what he said to you? Because I do. I can remember every moment of it.

“Do you want to know? Of course not. But I’ll tell, regardless.

“It was nighttime. You were sitting on Celebrimbor’s balcony, drinking wine and playing with his hair.

“He said to you, _you know so much of me, of my family and my past, and yet I know so little of you_.

“And you said to him, _would you like to_?

“Of course he responded yes, why would he say differently? Have you ever known him to refuse knowledge?

“To sum us up in a few words, you know that’s impossible, so you showed him.

“Do you know what he said? He said, _leave_.

“You told him, of course, that this doesn’t change anything, that you still love him, that you meant what you said, about making Arda great, that he told you that you were welcome, no matter your past, and you asked him if the centuries you spent together meant anything.

“He said, _not if they were built on lies_ , and he said he wished that none of this ever happened, that you had never come, and he said, _leave_.

“Do you think he loved you, then? Do you think you loved him then, he who would disown all your centuries and all your works together?

“Did _love_ help you then?”

“I hardly see how that can be me,” Annatar says, “considering I have no memory of it, suggesting it hasn’t yet passed in my time. Thus I would argue that, really, only _you_ are to blame for anything that happened.”

“Can you just stop?” Mairon says. “We’re the _same person_ , and I’m sick of hearing you arguing about what we’ve done. Besides, it’s not as though you can change anything, anyways.”

“Do tell,” Gorthaur says, “why do you say such a thing? Did we not agree that we had been pulled from our respective times?”

“Yes, but that’s not the point!” Mairon says. “The point is that since we’re all here, since nothing we’ve said has somehow made someone _disappear_ , everything we can remember has already happened, at least, up until him.”

He points to Sauron.

“Sure, we’ll return to our own times, or so we hope, but I’ll become him” —Gorthaur— “and he’ll become you” —Annatar— “and you’ll become him” —Sauron— “So really, we shouldn’t be arguing about what we three have done, but rather, what _he_ should do.”

“So you finally decided to say something intelligent for once in your life,” Gorthaur says.

“Why do you hate me like this?” Mairon says. “Did you really hate being me that much?”

“Yes!” Gorthaur snaps. “I hated every second of being you.”

“That’s not true,” Mairon says. “I don’t constantly hate myself.”

“Only most of the time, isn’t that right?”

Mairon stays silent.

“I despise your weakness,” Gorthaur continues. “How you are content with being just another maia, a nobody, a powerless wretch who will never be anybody, who will never be great. You smile at Aulë, chase after Eönwë and the others as though being in their presence will somehow allow you to gain their power, too, but it only makes you pathetic.

“You still believe whatever lies Manwë feeds you. You are still, somehow, convinced that you are wrong, that you are evil simply for wanting, simply because there is so much you want to accomplish, and you are convinced that’s something you need to hide, that somehow ‘normal’ is something to strive to.

“You limit yourself constantly, chaining yourself in a dungeon of your own construction; you berate yourself constantly, as though the lashes of your self flagellation will somehow bleed the wrongness out of yourself; there is so much you want and so much you could accomplish yet you are too much of a coward to even imagine what you could have.

“You—”

“I get it,” Mairon says, quietly. “Now that you have power, you wish to purge me entirely from your history, but you can’t, can you, especially now that I’m standing in front of you. I get it. We all make mistakes. Yours happened to be your youth. Me.

“But, and I hope you haven’t forgotten this, I never stopped trying. And maybe it was pure chance that Melkor found us, and maybe if things had been just that little bit different, you’d still be in Almaren, maybe making knives and not spoons, but I never stopped trying.

“You know, sometimes that’s the best we can do. Our best. Everything else is out of our control, and we’re not Eru! We aren’t made to be in control of everything, and really, maybe we shouldn’t be. Just look at him.”

Sauron, who’s gone off searching for his ring in the pristine hallways. Sauron, who’s muttering under his breath about power and domination.

“We might’ve gone with him,” Annatar says, to Gorthaur. “In fact, I think we should’ve. When Melkor was thrown into the Void, I mean, we ought to have gone with him.”

“Why did you, then?” Gorthaur asks.

“I tried. I couldn’t.”

A pause.

“Are you leaving?” Annatar asks, to Mairon.

“Yes, I thought I’d, you know, leave the two of you alone, “ he says. “Besides, I need some—space.”

“Yes,” Annatar says. With a wry twist to his lips, “don’t go too far.”

“I won’t,” says Mairon. “I can’t.”

Mairon giggles to himself as he walks away. He’ll probably come across Sauron soon enough, though he’s not too concerned.

He moves out of sight of the two before taking the mote out of his pocket. It’s awake now, awake and full of wrath. It attacks his palm viciously, though the effect on Mairon is minimal.

“Hello,” Mairon says. “How are you?”

Angry, is the probable answer. Angry and—in pain?

“I’m not great with emotions,” Mairon says, by way of explanation. “Will you tell me how to help you? _Can_ you tell me anything?”

The mote doesn’t respond, just nips at Mairon’s thumb.

“Do you want to go back to sleep?” Mairon asks. “It might be kinder.”

Mairon hums a song, one of identification, of knowledge revealed.

“I suppose that’s as I thought. How did you become like this? How did you become this constantly self destructive and renewing thing that gnaws itself in the shadows, this little spirit of malice?

“Is it a painful existence? I imagine it is. To be conscious, but just barely, of your own predicament, of your own suffering—did you ever know anything else? Would it be better if you did? To have known love, maybe, and happiness, and warm light on your face and the wind in your hair, and the joy of others around you and to be so painfully aware of everything you’ve lost and can never have again—or to only ever know anger and pain and fear?

“What could you have done to justify this? Can Eru really be so cruel?

“I can’t—I won’t believe that.”

Mairon sings, again, a song of dreamless sleep.

“Where did you come from? Who are you?”

“Talking to yourself again?” Annatar calls, from some distance away.

Mairon puts the mote back in his pocket and turns to face Annatar.

“Gorthaur and Sauron are fighting, yet again,” Annatar says. “One would think that they’ve already had every argument they could, in every possible arrangement, but it would appear that they have yet more to argue about.”

Mairon giggles nervously.

“Still on that ring of his?”

“Yes,” Annatar says.

“I guess I’m curious,” Mairon says. “Gorthaur hates me. And he hates Sauron. You hate Sauron. He, it appears, hates all of us. What about you? Do you hate me?”

Annatar’s mouth twists bitterly.

“Hardly,” he says. “You make me wonder—how much choice did I have, in all my years? When I chose Melkor, was it a choice that drew me, or Doom? When I was you, I had so much potential, so many choices not yet made. When did I lose them? Is it now, as me, or later, when I become Sauron?”

“I don’t think so,” Mairon says. “I mean, I don’t feel like I have many choices. What can I do? Continue as I am and strive for what greatness I can touch? Or give up this quest and consign myself to be a nobody for the rest of time? Beg Eru to unbind me to this world? Is that really a choice?”

Annatar is silent, for a moment.

“It is always in hindsight that we see what else we may have done,” Annatar says. “If I hadn’t chosen Melkor, if I had stayed in Almaren, would I know who I am? Or would I be a stranger even to myself?

“I miss it, you know. Utumno. When he—when Melkor hadn’t lost his mind to three ages of solitude and three paltry jewels, when he had vision and power enough for the two of us, when he loved me and I loved him too, with a fierce and undying devotion. I was happy then.”

“But no longer,” Mairon says.

“I’ve lost it all,” Annatar says, “and still I know I have more to lose: my second love, my creativity, my very soul. Was I Doomed from the beginning, or from when I chose Melkor, or did I Doom myself with every choice I made?

"How do I become Sauron?"

"Do you want him back?"

"As he was, yes," Annatar says without hesitation. "But as he is, with the War of Wrath and so many years in the void? I don't dare."

Annatar smiles, grimly.

"But that's not something you ought to concern yourself with, not just yet. There are still years before you, years and so much loss."

Silence, for a long moment. Annatar doesn’t seem inclined to say anything else.

"I'll, uh, leave you to your thoughts then," Mairon says.

Annatar nods, then strolls forward.

"Why bother talking to him?" Sauron asks, and Mairon jumps at his voice.

"Oh I, I didn't see you there," he says.

"He thinks he's so much better than me, but really he's not. Feigning superiority like that, his pure _hubris_ —nothing good comes from it."

As he speaks, Sauron pats Mairon down firmly, poking through the folds of his rough spun linen tunic and pants, reaching into the pockets of his worn leather apron, combing through his reddish-brown hair.

"I don't have your ring," Mairon says, though it’s rather pointless. "And why do you dislike Annatar, anyways?"

"Oh, he curses me for who we become, and he thinks he can avoid it, but he can't. He'll make the ring—of course he will, there's no doubt of that—it's not like we ever could've chosen differently, and he'll lose everything he's worked so hard for.

"He pretends that isn't his Doom, but of course it is; there's no way to avoid it. We'll always end up here.

"And he refuses to acknowledge this, that sacrifices must be made to achieve that which we want. He thinks it isn't worth it, but of course it is. We have power now, power enough to rival Melkor, and we're worshipped, as a god, and why shouldn't we be? Are we not great?"

“How can you live with such contrary beliefs?”

“They aren’t contrary,” Sauron growls.

"Why do you hate him?"

"He killed Tyelpe!" Sauron screams.

"You killed Tyelpe," Mairon says, but Sauron doesn't hear.

"He should've known better. He should've agreed; after all, is this not inevitable? Is this not better? I had no choice—I had to, don't you understand?"

"I don't think so," says Mairon. "I think you—I think we had a choice, every step of the way. And I think what we've become is the product of all our choices, good and bad."

Sauron's not listening—he’s already left.

"But I don't think he's the end," Mairon says, to the mote of malice that's wrapped around his wrist now. "There are consequences, even for him."

"Who, pray tell, are you speaking to?" Gorthaur asks.

"No one," Mairon says, hiding the mote. "Myself."

Myself.

The thought prickles at Mairon’s mind, as though there’s something he needs to see, some dots he needs to connect and—oh. Oh.

Sauron's ranting to Annatar now, and Mairon goes to them, so that the four are together.

“When I have my ring,” Sauron vows, “I will be great. I will be as a god to those in the world. I will be—”

“This.”

Mairon holds the mote in his hand, in its self consuming turmoil of anger and hate and fear and malice.

“This is what we become.”

Dead silence.

“Was it worth it?” Mairon asks. “Yes, we’ve achieved so much, we’ve reached heights never before imaginable but we’ve fallen, harder and faster and further than any before us.

“ _This_ is what we’ve become.

“Was it worth it?

"Was this what you wanted?

“Are you happy?”

"I had no choice—" Sauron, this time.

"No," Gorthaur says. "We chose. Don't you dare diminish that."

“I have always wondered where maiar go after their death,” Annatar says. “It would appear that this is it, the vaulted afterlife that Eru has in store for us.”

“Well it looks like you were wrong,” Gorthaur says to Mairon. “We hardly have to decide what he” —Sauron— “needs to be doing now. Really, there’s nothing left to do now.”

"No—" Mairon is cut off by Gorthaur.

"We're dead. Deceased, permanently disembodied, no longer a part of the world—what would you have us do?"

“Maybe—maybe Eru will… have mercy on us?” Mairon asks, trailing off.

“He hates us,” Sauron says, laughing bitterly.

“If we apologize—” Mairon is cut off.

"I won't apologize," says Gorthaur. "Not for loving him."

"Neither will I." Annatar this time.

“I—I guess I’m not really apologetic either,” Mairon admits. “Not for wanting.”

Silence.

"So what happens next?" Mairon asks.

"I don't know," says Sauron.

**Author's Note:**

> yesterday i was possessed by some writing demon and banged out this entire thing in less than a day so now you get to read this
> 
> not yet sure if this is my final thoughts on characterization for each stage of the "life cycle" but here are some thoughts anyways! for more content, check out my multi chap mairon fic [ admirable](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24930547/chapters/60336205)


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